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Shipud (685171) writes "We live in the post-genomic era, when DNA sequence data is growing exponentially. However, for most of the genes that we identify, we have no idea of their biological functions. They are like words in a foreign language, waiting to be deciphered. The Critical Assessment of Function Annotation, or CAFA, is a new community-wide experiment to assess the performance of the multitude of computational methods developed by research groups worldwide to help channel the flood of data from genome research to deduce the function of proteins.

Thirty research groups participated in the first CAFA, presenting a total of 54 algorithms. The results are published in an article in Nature Methods. The researchers participated in blind-test experiments in which they predicted the function of protein sequences for which the functions are already known but haven't yet been made publicly available. Independent assessors then judged their performance. The challenge organizers explain that: 'The accurate annotation of protein function is key to understanding life at the molecular level and has great biochemical and pharmaceutical implications, explain the study authors; however, with its inherent difficulty and expense, experimental characterization of function cannot scale up to accommodate the vast amount of sequence data already available.The computational annotation of protein function has therefore emerged as a problem at the forefront of computational and molecular biology.'"Link to Original Source

gannebraemorr writes "From utsandiego.com: "San Diego on Friday became the latest in a cadre of California citiesturning their backs on red-light cameras — aloof intersection sentries that have prompted $490 tickets to be mailed to 20,000 motorists per year here. Mayor Bob Filner announced his decision to take down the city’s 21 cameras at a news conference set at the most prolific intersection for the tickets, North Harbor Drive and West Grape Street, near San Diego International Airport. A crew went to work immediately taking down 'photo enforced' signs throughout the city. 'Seems to me that such a program can only be justified if there are demonstrable facts that prove that they raise the safety awareness and decrease accidents in our city,' Filner said of the cameras. 'The data, in fact, does not really prove it.'"

I have to say I'm a bit surprised that my city is voluntarily shedding potentially $9.8M in revenue after objectively evaluating a program. I wonder how much a system would cost that could switch my light from green to red if it detected a vehicle approaching from a red-lit direction at dangerous speeds."Link to Original Source

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Just a bonus for you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=iTBODoBaCns